


In the Middle of the Night

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22197559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: It starts in the middle of the night, Steve slipping uninvited into Danny’s bed. Of course, that’s not where it stops.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 39
Kudos: 363





	In the Middle of the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ymas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ymas/gifts).



> Another “how they start sleeping together” story because I know I needed it, and maybe some of you do too.
> 
> Hope your New Year is off to a lovely start, and if it’s not, you’re not alone. Hang in there. We’ll get through this one too..... xoxox
> 
> For Ymas. Who will no doubt recognize my starting point (and if not I’ll happily hit you over the head with my favorite story of all time), and who has been my rock in the past weeks of utter chaos.
> 
> (Tiny note: this was mostly written in the middle of the night and hardly edited like at all because I was just so relieved to have freaking written.... so, read with that in mind please.)

He doesn't look at the time when he hears the expected, unfamiliar car pull into the drive. He doesn't want to know. He knows what's coming. He's worked it out to pretty much a science at this point. Knows the signs. Knows what they mean.

The first time a drunk, exhausted, smelling of stale-cigarette-smoke-and-whiskey Steve had stumbled into his room, he hadn't seen it coming. He'd woken enough to register something was wrong but not that wrong, he'd pointed to the bathroom, muttering "towels are in the dryer," and gone back to sleep. When he'd woken next, Steve had been beside him in bed. Damp and smelling of Danny's soap, wearing a pair of Danny's sleep shorts, and snoring. He'd spent about twenty minutes listening to and watching Steve breathe—more to reassure himself Steve wasn't hurt—but then he'd fallen back asleep and when he'd woken in the morning, Steve had been gone.

That was months ago. It's happened... maybe ten or so times since then. Enough that Danny knows when to expect it. Has started leaving a towel and clothes on the chair by the bathroom door.

It's never nights Charlie is over, first of all. Steve knows Danny would shoot him if he showed up in that state on those nights. (Though Danny also knows Steve has keys to the Camaro, and there have been days he's half expected to find Steve asleep in the back seat. He never has. Yet.)

It's never after a rough case. That's too obvious a thing maybe, or maybe it's those days that give Steve something to work with—help him process, help him cope, help him pour his pent up lack-of-dealing into someone else's hurt and pain and loss, instead of dealing with his own.

It's also never after the good days. The ones with big wins, the ones where one of the kids does something amazing that makes them both proud. Those days, where the balance of the world feels just that little bit more slanted towards good than to evil.

It's always only on the days that linger somewhere in between. Neither fully bad, and not really good. Not enough meat on a case for Steve to feel satisfied. Or maybe he ends up too long at his desk with paperwork. Danny's not entirely sure what the causes are. But he's learned to recognize what it looks like. That slightly haunted haze in Steve's eyes. That slightly distant posture. Slightly reduced reaction rate.

He's tried adjusting _something_ to help. Hasn't found what that is yet.

It's not offering to get pizza and walk Eddie while Steve swims for five hours. It's not getting him to surf. It's not even offering to bring two six packs and sit on the beach and not talk, just sit.

So far the only thing Danny’s found is that a drunk and morose Steve will wind up in his bed at some point in the middle of the night, and be gone by morning.

And yeah, he knows this can’t continue. (But thanks for pointing it out.)

Thing is. Pushing Steve when he’s like this just doesn't feel like the right thing to do. It's like he needs to work through it on his own, and Danny's role is evidently to... what? Keep him warm at night after he's done whatever it is he does? Whatever it is, whatever need crawling into bed with Danny fills for Steve on those nights, it seems to be a comfort to him at the least, and frankly, Danny thinks it's something more than nothing. (And he'll take it.)

There’s something different in the air with him tonight, as Steve stumbles slightly on his way to shower. Danny wants to turn and look, but he doesn’t. He’s always just that little bit afraid it’d spook Steve. Feeling observed. Feeling judged. Though that’s not what Danny’s doing. He’s been in dark enough places of his own, thanks. He won’t judge another man his shitty coping devices. As long as no one else gets hurt—and Steve never drives, always takes a cab. Or an Uber. Or whatever. Danny’d like it very much if “no one” getting hurt included Steve himself, but that’s probably part of the need. Punishing himself. For his abject failure at keeping his mother safe.

(Not that it’s something that ever should be a son’s role. But of course that’s how Steve feels.)

But there’s some extra something rolling off Steve’s scent as he walks by that alerts Danny. He just wishes he knew what it was. It’s enough to keep him awake, where usually pretending to be asleep winds up with Danny actually falling back asleep. This time he stays awake. And he watches. And waits.

He isn’t waiting long. Probably right around that official five minute mark, in fact.

When Steve walks out and sees Danny watching him, he stills. Danny doesn’t look away, tries not to react. He watches as Steve swallows, makes himself start breathing again, then finishes drying off, and—turning his back to Danny in a completely needless move of modesty—pulls on the shorts Danny’s come to think of as Steve’s. Stepping back into the bathroom to hang his towel up on the hook on the back of the door, Steve shuts off the light and pauses. Still Danny doesn’t react, doesn’t move, doesn’t encourage. It feels like minutes pass but he knows it’s only a few seconds, then Steve resolves himself and steps up to the bed. Holding Danny’s eyes, he lifts the blanket and crawls in, hesitating when he reaches his usual spot, but then sliding, tentatively, closer.

Danny’s settled on his side, head propped on his arms behind him. Comfortable. Easy. He could sleep like this. For a while anyway.

Steve eases into the mattress. Spreading more than moving that little bit closer, so he’s resting nearly against Danny. When Danny doesn’t react, Steve lets out a sigh that seems to Danny like he’s been holding it in for far far too long. It’s only moments before Danny knows Steve’s soundly asleep, and it’s not much longer after that before Danny follows.

In the morning, when Danny wakes, Steve’s not in bed beside him, but Danny knows just as swiftly that he’s still in the house. And not just because he smells coffee. The house just feels different.

Still, he’s wary of spooking Steve, so he gets ready slowly. Brushing his teeth, getting dressed, and only then appears in the kitchen, where he finds a sheepish and obviously hungover Steve slouched over a mug of coffee and looking desolate.

Hoping he’s got eggs, Danny heads to the fridge by way of coffee machine—pouring himself what’s left and setting it to brew again—before being relieved to see there are in fact reasonably fresh eggs and starting to fry them up, tossing some toast in to brown and wishing he had bacon.

Steve mutters a soft and grateful sounding “Thank you,” when Danny sets the plate in front of him, and when he calls Tani to say they won’t be in, and to call only if it’s necessary, doesn’t protest.

It's that, more than anything, that makes Danny realize he needs to do something. That this has gone beyond the illicit sleeping in Danny's bed, and into something approaching—but not quite reaching—explicitly asking for help.

Once Steve's done with his food, Danny piles him in the Camaro and takes him for a drive. He takes the long way there, and Steve drifts off... not quite to sleep, but into that mindless but possibly thoughtful fuzzy daze, looking out the window, but no doubt seeing actually nothing of the view. Until they pull up at that overlook where so many pivotal conversations have taken place. They don't talk now, but they do sit, looking out over the water, over the island that's become so much more than just "home" to Danny. He hopes Steve knows that. Doesn't dare tell him.

They head north, grab some food from the famous food trucks there, sit under the trees at Banzai and watch the waves. Steve falls asleep on the drive home, and Danny stops at the store to stock up. Protein, booze, and chocolate (the last for himself, if he's gonna have a few days of this he's definitely gonna need some extra help). If he adds a couple other supplies in there just in case, well, it's always better to be prepared. He may have been kicked out of the Boy Scouts, but he's not blind to the wisdom of their motto.

Steve’s awake when he gets back to the car, but he doesn't react to Danny, doesn't object or protest or question. There’s a softer expression on his face, though, and when Danny starts the ignition he switches on the radio and fiddles with it till he’s found something suitably awful. Danny groans but doesn't comment, and he catches the flicker of a grin on Steve’s lips. 

When they get back to Danny’s, Steve moves to help unload the groceries, but Danny shushes him and sends him in to pick one of the completely crappy action movies from his watch list, while he unloads the food and makes them some snacks. Not that they need more food. But it helps—at least it helps Danny to make it, and he thinks somehow it helps Steve to have it put in front of him, though Danny’s not entirely sure why.

He hesitates as he joins Steve in the living room, unsure. Ordinarily when they watch a movie they, well, basically, cuddle. Steve must sense Danny’s uncertainty, and he takes the food from Danny, so he can set down the beers. And when he sits, maybe a little further away than usual, Steve simply slides closer. But rather than wrap his arm posessively around Danny as he ordinarily does, he falls against Danny’s side, as though wanting to be held himself instead. Which doesn't surprise him, it seems fitting, given the past many weeks. But it’s new. And therefore that little bit uncertain, unsure. But Danny wraps his arm around him, and when Steve basically melts into him, he lets out another of those little sighs—and Danny understands it this time. Recognizes the meaning in the exhalation. _Home, comfort, safe._

And that starts to unpeel the layers of whatever it’s been that’s been holding him back from being more than passive in this thing that Steve’s been doing. That, more than anything, is what starts to shift something somewhere deep inside Danny, that the sleeping together hasn't. Because that’s the thing about night. It’s easier, by cover of darkness, to let down your guard. Vulnerabilities seem less like weaknesses and more like secret strengths. Fears are things to be faced down, admitted, dealt with. By the harsh light of day it’s so much easier to shore up our defenses, to strengthen our walls because every chink, every potential breach is starkly evident by the cold light of day. But in the soft unreality of darkest night, it’s simpler, easier, almost necessary, to admit softness, concede weakness. And embrace it.

Steve stays firmly against Danny for the entire film. And at the end, when Danny starts to move, Steve presses his weight against him to still him. And that says something else. Because there’s this understanding between them, somehow, that time spent watching something is time that’s not fully real. Like being immersed in the unreality of a cinematic fantasy is an escape of their own, but that when it’s over, so is that time. And it makes it safe, it makes it okay. But to want to linger in it after.... Well, that’s an entirely different game. And they don't have rules for this. 

So Danny follows Steve’s lead. (Not that there’s usually much choice.) He settles back, pulls Steve that little bit closer, and is rewarded with a contented grunt. It makes him smile. Steve’s so basically simple at the heart of it. Danny gets a little lost in that sometimes, in feeling that Steve is this dense, impenetrable mass of confusing contradictions. So powerfully strong and certain, yet so intensely wounded and fragile. So confident in the field, so lacking in confidence with relationships. Proud, yet stunningly humble. Self-sacrificing, and yet… at least when it comes to Danny, incredibly demanding and selfish. It makes him laugh, in that bemused, befuddled kind of way. This self-contradictory thing that is Steve. He’s never been entirely sure what to make of it. What to make of Steve. And okay maybe part of him has imagined—assumed even—that they’d end up as lovers. And maybe even more. But they’ve danced towards and away from that seeming inevitability so many times that Danny has lost count. 

This doesn't feel like dancing anymore. This feels like being there already. The comfort, the ease with which Steve rests at his side right here in this moment feels a lot more like the easy familiarity of slightly faded lovers. Where the magic has almost but not quite fled. Where there’s still the possibility and occasional occurrence of surprise, of delight, but mostly it’s that nearly too familiar pulse of the expected. And there’s comfort there. Safety there. There’s that letting down of one’s figurative hair. And it’s nice, especially for someone who never got there in so many relationships. For someone who has only rarely had that kind of expected comfort, because he's far too likely to dwell on that perpetual knife’s edge of anticipating the inevitable downfall. 

Ironically, that’s probably what does it for him. What seals that deal, what seals his fate—as if his fate hadn’t been in some very real sense sealed from that very moment he first set eyes on this man by his side. This man who has _been_ by his side. In so many more real ways than anyone has ever been. This man who has believed in him and trusted him when he’s believed in and trusted no other. What has he done to deserve that? He’s asked that of himself in his own darkest moments, and never found an answer. Except that _that_ is the answer.

Danny’s lived a lot of his life by the principle that one earns the love one deserves. That by acts and by being who you can, doing what you can, saving who you can, you earn love. Respect. Your place in life.

And yet there’s always been this tug at his heart telling him otherwise. Telling him that’s not how it should be, not how it really is. That how it really is is something more, something incredibly more magical and wonderful and terribly fragile. Yet powerfully strong. Because love isn't earned, it isn't deserved, it just _is_. And yet that seems to be something mostly denied. Mostly discounted as the imaginings of the frail few too weak to be bold enough to earn love the proper way.

But he feels it now. Because he knows he’s done nothing, truly nothing, to deserve the level of trust with which Steve has blessed him from the very beginning. There was absolutely nothing in anything Danny had done, nothing in who he’d been. (Which at that point in his life felt like the epitome of the flaming hot mess.) To deserve the devotion, the trust, the _commitment_ of someone like Steve McGarrett. It stunned him then, and it is not at all the less stunning to him now, for all the years that have passed. 

He moves again, unsettling the heavy, sleepy, weighted down Steve. He stands, hand held behind him for Steve’s. There’s a pause. A moment’s hesitation, and a warm, calloused hand slides into his, and he realizes what he knows he should have seen before, that it’s the only one that’s ever truly fit his. He moves forward, not tugging, not insisting, just gently leading. Steve follows, and not in any kind of reluctant way, more in that completely trusting way animals often have—that utter trust that’s frankly upsetting because you know it’s how it leads to such suffering. It makes him all the more certain he’ll never stop trying to deserve (not earn, but deserve) that trust.

Once they’re in the bathroom, the shower water warming up, Danny takes his clothes off, then Steve’s. He steps under the spray, then moves Steve under it. It hasn't taken much, Danny’s barely touched him. But Steve’s desire is on full display, and maybe it’s jumping over a few important steps, but it just doesn't feel like it, and it’s more like it’s part of washing him than it is anything exactly sexual, but somehow that feels right. And it feels just as right to show Steve he’s not at all unmoved by this change between them. 

It’s not till they’re dried and, perhaps oddly, clothed and in bed, that they kiss. And that too feels a bit worn around the edges already. More like when you’ve been apart or distant or otherwise not as connected as usual with an old lover and you come back to some kind of freshness and find that kissing those lips again can be just as electric, but even more so because of all those days that have passed. 

It’s not thrilling. It’s not earth shattering. It’s nothing close to mind blowing.

But it’s comfort and it’s peace and it’s home.

They sleep, not as they’ve been doing, side by side. But tangled together, limbs intertwined, resting heavily, almost painfully, together. And probably a lot of nights will be closer to the other. The fallen apart, this is my side of the bed, that’s yours—not out of anything other than the practicality of needing rest. But there’s some need that is met by this contact. This melding of limbs, meeting of bodies. And it stirs another, more obvious need, in the dark middle of the night, and this time it’s more fluid, more sexual, more desperate. And the kisses turn to bites, and there’s a fierceness there, an animalistic need that’s gone too long unmet. Suppressed, even. And maybe releasing it feels dangerous. But necessary. And their completion is utterly unsatisfying which in itself is a kind of deeply satisfying thing, in that way the realization that sex is this nearly mystical, uncontrollable, powerful thing always is. It’s life giving. It’s healing in the truest sense. And it feels astounding. 

They don't sleep after that. They touch, and they kiss, and they mutter nonsense they absolutely mean, but none of it matters, because the only thing that truly matters happened ages ago, and this is merely some faded footnote of the inevitable conclusion. 

And that means absolutely everything.


End file.
